asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the average weekly cost of detaining a young person during borstal training and detention centre treatment, respectively.
In England and Wales the estimated weekly cost of maintaining an inmate in a borstal or young prisoners centre in the financial year 1973–74 was £51 and in a detention centre was £45.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the comparative success, as measured by the rate of reconviction, of detention centres and borstals over each of the past five years.
The information available relates to known reconvictions for standard list offences within two years from the date of discharge from custody and is published in the Annual Report on the work of the Prison Department (Statistical Volume). The following tables give information for those discharged from custody in the years 1966–70. Figures for those discharged in later years are not yet available:
| Young men discharged from borstal | |
| Year | Per cent. not reconvicted |
| 1966 | 39·0 |
| 1967 | 34·6 |
| 1968 | 34·9 |
| 1969 | 32·5 |
| 1970 | 34·8 |
| Young women discharged from borstal | |
| Year | Per cent. not reconvicted |
| 1966 | 65·6 |
| 1967 | 62·1 |
| 1968 | 61·2 |
| 1969 | 61·3 |
| 1970 | 72·6 |
| Young men discharged from detention centres | |
| Year | Per cent. not reconvicted |
| 1966 | 45·9 |
| 1967 | 44·9 |
| 1968 | 41·8 |
| 1969 | 41·6 |
| 1970 | 46·4 |